TorrentSpy was ordered by a California federal judge to pay some $110 million to Hollywood Studios in damages for copyright infringement of thousands of films, TV, and music shows through its BitTorrent search engine. ($30,000 per copyright infringement–for 3,699 films and shows. Total worth of $110,970,000.)

A permanent injunction against TorrentSpy was also issued by the Los Angeles judge, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper. The company closed its site on March 24, stating financial hardship and a desire to protect the privacy of its users.

Friends of TorrentSpy,

We have decided on our own, not due to any court order or agreement, to bring the Torrentspy.com search engine to an end and thus we permanently closed down worldwide on March 24, 2008.

The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile. We spent the last two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending the rights of our users and ourselves.

Ultimately the Court demanded actions that in our view were inconsistent with our privacy policy, traditional court rules, and International law; therefore, we now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown.

It was a wild ride,
The TorrentSpy Team

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) CEO Dan Glickman warns that the same lawsuit and fines will also happen with other file-sharing search service applications.

To date, the permanent injunction prohibits operator of TorrentSpy, Valence Media, from engaging in any actions that “encourages, promotes or solicits, or knowingly facilitates, enables or assists, copyright infringement,” according to the court order.

Source: News.com

By: Kaung | ChitChat247.com | KMKBlog.com